Since "Bone Conditioning" is a commonly practiced, traditional, and widely believed in form of training, shouldn't it be the skeptics job to prove that it DOESN'T work and not vice versa?

I think this falls into the (admittedly over-used) “can’t prove a negative” category. If there’s a rational reason to believe that it does work, there must be evidence for it. If no good evidence for it can be produced—

Besides, any study that shows a negative result will be dismissed by True Believers on the basis that “their study participants didn’t do it right”. The only way there’s any chance of shaking beliefs is by examining the best evidence and showing it to be wanting (if such be the case).

33-100 kick boxers (train mainly with gloves, no makiwara training) enter Kyokushin tournaments. Then we see if there is a higher occurence of breaks in the kb'ers.

Do breaks happen more frequent amongst KK white belts (less time on the makiwara) than on black belts? (I'm only using KK as an example b/c they don't use gloves)

Not a bad idea at first glance, but there’s a huge confounding variable: White belts will on average tend to have inferior punching technique, and a higher injury rate may reasonably be ascribed to that rather than to any difference due to conditioning. A similar argument is applicable to the kickboxers, who have less experience in bare-knuckled punching techniques. (There may be no difference, but in order to eliminate this variable you have to show that there is no difference.)

the stupid 'toe tip kick' has my doctor recommending surgery to remove the calcification on my big toes (I saw it on the x-ray). She says that if I keep it up, my toe will be completely rigid in 20 years or less.

I think this falls into the (admittedly over-used) “can’t prove a negative” category. If there’s a rational reason to believe that it does work, there must be evidence for it. If no good evidence for it can be produced—

Besides, any study that shows a negative result will be dismissed by True Believers on the basis that “their study participants didn’t do it right”. The only way there’s any chance of shaking beliefs is by examining the best evidence and showing it to be wanting (if such be the case).

Judging by the fact that there are a ton of competitions to see who can break the most bricks/cinderblocks/boards/etc, and many people break stacks upon stacks without breaking a single bone is pretty good evidence I think. There are a lot of people whose hands would break under those circumstances, and I mean a LOT. Since that is concrete evidence (no pun intended), then there should be some study done to prove that the training done did NOT in fact prepare them for breaking those bricks without getting injured. But there isn't. That's why the score is what I said it is. Now one could easily say that "Bone Training" is dangerous, but that is not the same as saying that it just doesn't work. This is why I say somebody should be looking to prove that it doesn't work, and not making people prove that it does because evidence is already here from the other side of the argument that can be seen on television, the internet, and even in person if you find the right place. That makes it HARD evidence, which means its not the job of the practitioners to prove anything as of now.

BJJ might make you a better ground fighter, but Judo will make you a better dancer.

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Posted On:5/20/2009 4:46pm

Style: Judo

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For what it's worth, the skeletons of all the longbow archers found on the Mary Rose were deformed (their left arms were bigger). So training can significantly alter your bone structure, under certain conditions at least (longbows were difficult weapons to master, they would have been practising since childhood).

I believe the actual academic source is cited on the wikipedia page for "longbow" if you're interested.